Field of the Invention
The invention relates to railway rolling stock and consists particularly in a device for lubricating center plates swivelly mounting railway car bodies on their trucks.
The Prior Art
Because of several factors including higher train speeds and heavier loads, unlubricated and inadequately lubricated railway truck center plates frequently incur excessive wear and breaking out fore and aft. For reducing wear on center plates, steel plates imperforate, except for the center pin hole, have frequently been applied to center plates, and non-metallic lubricant discs have also been applied between the opposed surfaces of the truck and body center plates, as exemplified by E. P. Smith et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,264,215. The imperforate steel plates, while resisting wear, do not facilitate lubrication of the center plates to which they are applied. Most lubricant discs of which I am aware are unsatisfactory because, after a relatively short period of use, they are ground up by the relative rotational movements of the truck and body center plates and disintegrate into a powdery substance which disappears from the truck center plate. Several patents disclose the use of a plurality of perforate discs between opposed relatively rotatable members for the purpose of supplying lubricant to the relatively rotatable surfaces. Of these patents, G. C. Schaefer U.S. Pat. No. 2,662,799 is directed to a fifth wheel for tractor trailers and the like and L. E. Weber U.S. Pat. No. 2,871,069 is directed to a self-lubricating and rattle preventing washer for parts which, though readily movable, may be only occasionally shifted, such as the bows and levers of convertible tops, the wheels of baby carriages, children's wagons and toys. The Schaefer patent does not disclose what material the perforated discs are made of and does not make it clear that they are in load-supporting relation with the relatively rotatable upper part of the upper fifth wheel, and the Weber patent does not contemplate using the non-metallic discs in vertical load-supporting relation to the relatively rotatable parts and specifies that the discs are of molded pliable plastic material.